The NAACP seems more interested in fictional black characters than real
black people.

Kweisi Mfume, president of the Baltimore-based civil rights group, has
generated headlines lately for pressuring the four TV networks to address
what he calls a "virtual whitewash in programming." Last summer,
Mfume threatened to boycott the networks "because none of the 26
new shows slated for the fall season have a minority in a leading or starring
role." NBC and ABC have agreed to develop more minority parts. CBS
and Fox continue to negotiate with the NAACP.

Earth to Planet Mfume: How about the black folks down here on the ground?

At best, this NAACP victory means more work for black actors on "Friends"
or "Frasier." Good for them. Black writers, cameramen and production
executives will prosper, as will the cast and crew of CBS' "City
of Angels," a predominantly-minority drama that premiered January
16.

But how about the millions of blacks who don't know Lee Strasberg from
Stella Adler? How about those who have not attended college and might
not graduate high school?

The NAACP and the civil rights establishment desperately need a priorities
transplant. Mfume and company resemble a family fighting over the remote
control as their house burns down. While they promote employment for black
thespians, suffrage for black felons and mercy for teen-aged black hoodlums
in Decatur, Illinois, average black Americans have plunged from the radar
of these so-called "black leaders."

Take education. According to a state audit last month, teachers and educrats
in New York City's government schools - home to some 390,000 black students
among 1.1 million enrolled - allegedly padded high-school attendance records
with phantom pupils who had moved away, been jailed or dropped dead. Higher
head counts equal higher state aid, naturally. One investigator told me
this scheme fraudulently funnels $30 million to $60 million per year into
local school coffers "at the very least, and maybe much more."

In Gotham's elementary and middle schools, equally ingenious staffers
reportedly helped students cheat on standardized tests. Top school officials
recently charged that 58 teachers and administrators gave children the
answers to math and reading exams used to rank school performance.

Exhausted from such malfeasance, New York's professional educators barely
could stand up to teach. Fifty percent of fourth graders failed a fall
statewide math test. In English, 67 percent flunked. Among eighth graders,
77 percent flubbed a state math exam while 65 percent failed English.

The NAACP's response to this outrageous abuse of black kids and their
mainly-minority classmates? Silence. No justice? Peace.

Willie Breazell, former president of the 800-strong Colorado Springs
NAACP chapter, called for school vouchers last August. As he wrote in
the Colorado Springs Gazette: "the poorest kids who need the most
help are trapped in our very worst schools. If those schools can't do
the job, shouldn't we let the kids who have been assigned to them go to
schools that can?"

Although his column said "Breazell's views are not intended to reflect
those of the NAACP," headquarters forced him to resign. "I was
kind of lynched, so to speak," Breazell told the Wall Street Journal.

Meanwhile, America enjoys 4.1 percent unemployment. Black unemployment,
however, is 7.9 percent. Overall, 13.8 percent of teenagers are jobless
compared to 25.3 percent of black teens. The NAACP could help by marshaling
its resources to boost minority entrepreneurship and deregulate urban
businesses. Instead, the NAACP stayed busy last October chiding the Detroit
Tigers for not hiring a minority member as manager.

Social Security also harms black men as the retirement age tends to exceed
their life spans. According to the National Center for Health Statistics'
latest data, the at-birth life expectancy for a black male born in 1996
was 66 years. But he will be ineligible for Social Security retirement
benefits until age 67. It is barbaric to force that child to pay into
a system that offers him nothing until a year after his forecast death.

The NAACP should picket the Social Security Administration to demand
a personal retirement account option. But rather than decry this program's
disparate impact on black men, NAACP Chairman Julian Bond hinted at Jim
Crow when he called pension privatizers "descendants of the same
groups that opposed Social Security and civil rights." Black capital
apparently rides in the back of the NAACP bus.

The NAACP and so-called "black leaders" should zoom in on the
needs of run-of-the-mill black Americans. If so, it hardly would matter
if Ross Geller on "Friends" started dating a black paleontologist.